0:00

Welcome to the Sober Boozer Club podcast

0:03

, a place where we can talk openly and honestly

0:05

about addiction , sobriety and

0:07

, strangely enough , beer . I'm

0:09

Ben , I'm an alcoholic and for the last two

0:12

years I've been sampling some of the finest

0:14

alcohol-free beers the world has to

0:16

offer . Each week , I'll be joined

0:18

by a different guest to discuss their own

0:20

lived experiences on all

0:22

things related to the world of low

0:24

and no alcohol beverages . So

0:27

pour yourself a tipple , relax and

0:29

let me welcome you to the Sober Boozers

0:31

Club . In today's episode

0:33

, I finally complete

0:35

the MASHGANG trilogy by talking to Trent

0:38

from MASHGANG Australia , and at

0:40

the start of this interview we're actually discussing

0:42

let's say we're discussing Beach Goon , which

0:44

is their latest beer . He's actually

0:46

mocking me for not having a can of my

0:48

own . So that's lovely , isn't it ? We're

0:51

going to talk about the history behind MASHGANG

0:53

Australia , how Trent got involved in

0:55

brewing for MASHGANG and about

0:57

the whole alcohol-free scene

0:59

in Australia as a whole . It's a

1:01

really nice episode . It's the first time we've actually ever

1:03

met . So as a whole , it's a really nice episode . It's

1:05

the first time we've actually ever met , so I really

1:07

hope you enjoy .

1:08

Oh , look at that . Oh , it's glorious . Yeah , this came out way

1:11

better than I expected .

1:17

Yeah , I've heard George say . What George said to me on a message like this is the best beer I've ever had . So that's something

1:19

for you .

1:20

It's yeah , yeah , yeah , definitely stoked with

1:22

the response . So we're getting . I haven't had a lot of people

1:24

review on Untappd , I think 11 or 12

1:26

, but it's on like 4.16 . Yeah

1:29

, yeah , I saw that , but I've entered

1:31

it into the Australian Independent Brewing

1:33

Awards which is in

1:35

July . So , yeah , hopefully

1:37

we get a medal or something . That'd be pretty cool , a bit of recognition

1:40

. But yeah , I'm pretty proud of this one

1:42

.

1:42

Yeah , it's good . It's good For context

1:44

. We're talking about Beach Goon and

1:46

I'm joined , as you may have gathered , by

1:48

Trent from Mash Gang Australia .

1:53

I'm not sure what could have given that away . Who was it ? Yeah , sorry I'm late . I'm

1:55

thinking of G'day mate . How the bloody

1:57

hell are you ?

1:58

There we go . I thought you'd have . What other stereotypes

2:00

can we apply here ? I'm

2:03

not going to insult you with fosters because

2:05

that's ridiculous .

2:06

Yeah , oh .

2:06

God , that's a piece of it . Can

2:08

you actually get it anywhere , or is it just

2:10

?

2:10

nonsense . You can Now . You couldn't

2:13

in Australia for a very long time , but now

2:15

I saw it like Craft

2:17

Carto , who's a big online liquor retail

2:19

, advertising . You can buy some tinnies of fosters

2:21

, but nobody drinks it here . It's

2:24

funny yeah I think they did in the 70s and

2:26

then it started getting made over there . I mean

2:28

, I lived in the uk from 2013 to 2019

2:31

, so I saw it everywhere and , of course , anywhere I worked

2:33

, everyone gave me shit about drinking fosters

2:35

. But uh , yeah , we don't drink it here , it's

2:37

a no , I didn't . I didn't think you did fosters

2:40

actually in in this .

2:41

I'm not . I'm not going to talk about Foster's anymore after

2:43

this , but they released a Shandy

2:46

over here , or

2:48

is it a Shandy ? Yeah , it is a Shandy , but it's called like

2:50

proper Shandy and

2:53

I was like , oh , that's going to be sweet , I bet

2:55

that'll be really good . And it's like 3% and I

2:57

mean I can't do that . So I was like for

2:59

God's sake that would have been great

3:01

, like just a really shit like

3:03

shandy beer . I'd have

3:05

loved that and it's like

3:08

they didn't even do that right Like

3:10

3% .

3:10

What's the one ? Oh , it's the one you can

3:12

get in Malta . It's like a

3:15

lemon Rattler beer . It's like their main

3:17

macro . Is

3:19

it Pisk or something ?

3:21

I don't know .

3:21

Pisk Rattler . I remember having one on a ferry in Malta a few years ago . I was

3:24

going is it Gozo ? I love Radler and

3:26

my friend , my buddy oh yeah

3:28

, so do I and my buddy of mine he's my small tease and

3:31

he'd been over there and was drinking these

3:33

Pishk things , so it was just a bit of an in-joke getting

3:35

on the Pishk .

3:39

I once thought I had overdosed on a combination

3:42

of Rattlers and prescription

3:44

medication when I was in Santorini

3:46

. That was wild Sounds

3:50

interesting so . I've got a lot of respect

3:52

for Rattlers now . They're

3:56

not to be taken lightly .

3:58

No definitely not . The name's deceiving

4:01

, isn't it ?

4:01

We talked about Beach Goon very

4:03

briefly to begin with , whilst you were mocking me

4:05

for not being able to get it over here . I'm

4:08

going to send you something , don't worry , you're a legend

4:10

, it's going to make my day Like these

4:12

. These mash gang podcasts have done me

4:15

very good , because it was the the

4:17

oak cream pale . George sent

4:20

me his last can because I was like

4:22

man , I really want to drink that beer . I

4:25

don't know what it was about it , I just I think it was just the name

4:27

and the can and like seeing

4:29

jordan film it in the fucking woods in wales

4:31

or wherever it was . Um , yeah

4:34

, and I was like I really need

4:36

this beer . And that's how I first kind of

4:38

discovered you guys

4:40

or kind of started looking into

4:42

what you guys were doing and realized it was a different

4:44

entity . Um , how

4:47

did it kind of come about it

4:49

?

4:49

come about . So back

4:51

in 20 it must have been 29 , 2020

4:54

so during lockdowns and stuff , you know as the

4:56

same old story , we were drinking too much , so

4:58

I was looking for alternatives um , so I

5:00

won't spend too much time on that but I started running

5:02

uh , it was called afb squad , um , so it's almost like what you're doing now with the beer

5:04

club and I had meetings with so I won't spend too much time on that , but I started running . It was called AF Beer Squad , so

5:07

it's almost like what you're doing now with the beer club . And I had meetings with Robin and

5:09

Tom back in the day and I was talking about

5:12

getting some hints and ideas of how to run a successful

5:14

subscription box that's non-alcoholic , with

5:16

a smaller audience , and there wasn't a

5:18

lot of beers available at that point

5:20

in Australia . There was probably half a dozen , plus

5:23

some big macro ones that would taste terrible . So

5:25

I started importing through , had the

5:27

help of Tom and Robin

5:30

as well , and then I sort of stumbled onto

5:32

Mash Gang through Instagram and

5:34

, of course , like everyone else , the branding looks cool

5:36

, the guys are super chill and

5:38

it just resonated with me . Me and George started chatting

5:41

on DMs , then

5:43

it went to voice messages . Then we were calling each other . We

5:46

just became buds . And then I

5:48

yeah , my wife became pregnant and I was having

5:50

a child and we had a dog and everything was too busy

5:52

still . So I wanted

5:54

to wind down the beer squad . I mean it

5:57

wasn't going gangbusters , it wasn't making me any money

5:59

. I probably did it for nearly two years

6:02

. I think we

6:05

did a couple of Christmas special boxes where I spoke to breweries around the world and I

6:07

paid for the shipping and they just gave me the beer for free . But it

6:09

was never more than two cases . I think the most

6:11

we got up to was 35 subscribers . I

6:16

think we got that Lamb of God beer from the States . I had

6:18

a buddy in the States . That was the best thing I'd ever done . I had a buddy from

6:20

the States and I had to ship it to his

6:22

house from Brewdog US and then he forwarded

6:24

it onto me to my house , and

6:26

because one of the guys that's the scrub is

6:29

the first subscriber Cole , he was a oh

6:32

sorry , what's the band ? It's left my mind . He's

6:36

into heavy metal . So I got it especially

6:38

for him and it actually cost me money to

6:40

get it over , and just especially for him . I just wanted

6:42

to blow his mind . I was like , yeah , this beer I got for you

6:44

, um , so anyway , yeah , back to the story

6:46

. So yeah , me and jordan were talking and I was trying to wind that

6:48

down and yeah

6:50

, he said why don't we just start brewing mash gang over there ? So

6:53

yeah , it sort of stemmed from that . Just

6:55

a silly idea on a , on a conversation

6:57

, um , and during

6:59

the time I was doing afb scott , I was talking

7:02

to a brewery called Big Shed in Adelaide

7:04

and found out they did contract

7:06

brewing and they'd already made their own non-alcoholic

7:08

. It was very hard and still

7:10

is very hard in Australia to contract brew

7:12

for non-alcoholics . Okay , it's

7:16

sort of a higher risk of products , obviously with no

7:18

ethanol in it to disinfect any

7:21

bugs or

7:24

yeast that can grow in it or moulds

7:26

. So yeah , a lot of breweries don't

7:29

really want to touch it . So it's

7:31

a bit of a stigma here and those that do

7:33

do it and do it well and those that

7:36

don't are missing out , I feel . But

7:38

there are a few more . It's getting more popular over

7:41

here . It's taking longer than I thought Usually

7:44

, trends like that where Australia

7:46

is probably three or four years behind , but I feel

7:48

that the NIAC space is still growing . You

7:51

know current economic climate is

7:53

making it tougher , with the cost of living going

7:55

up and people not to be able to afford as

7:57

many . You know wanky beers as

8:00

they used to . Wanky beers I

8:03

like beach good . I mean you can get all that

8:05

. They're cheaper two e's zeros , I think

8:07

, which are you know a few bucks for a six pack and they're

8:09

just crap . I see people on forums

8:12

posting like I've got this and then succinct porn . It's

8:14

like save your six bucks and spend the next

8:16

.

8:16

You know 20 yeah , that's the thing . Like

8:18

it really bothers me when people

8:20

try the really low-brow

8:23

non-alcoholic

8:25

beers and then they base their entire

8:28

perception of alcohol-free beer on that

8:30

. It's like , oh , I had this and

8:32

it was bad , so I don't like it at all . It's

8:35

like you've ruined it for yourself by doing

8:37

that first man .

8:39

Yeah , I feel that . I feel that some of the

8:41

quality on some of the other brands that were good in

8:43

Australia have dropped . So when people are getting introduced , that some of the quality on some of the other brands that were good in Australia have dropped . So when

8:45

people are getting introduced to some of these more popular

8:47

ones , they're not as good as they were

8:50

a few years ago . Okay , so

8:52

maybe they're value engineered or they've done something , or

8:54

maybe it's just my palate changing . I don't

8:56

know . Yeah , but I

8:59

feel when people get introduced to it , it's got to be banging .

9:06

Otherwise they're just going to be like , no , it's wasted six bucks . Yeah , yeah , I've said

9:08

if I would have got sober when , like three , four years ago well , three , four years prior

9:11

to when I actually did um , I'd

9:13

have been in so much trouble because the , the

9:15

beers that were available just weren't as good , and

9:18

without , yeah , some beers I'd have been . Really

9:21

it would have been a real uphill climb for me . So

9:23

it's like , thank god , thank God that there's peace and stuff

9:25

around now ?

9:27

Yeah , definitely , definitely . So . Yeah

9:29

, back to the story . We

9:31

were , yeah , so we did a first contract brew

9:33

a beer called yeah , nah , yeah

9:36

, that we released , I

9:38

think it was almost three years ago now . It's

9:40

been a long journey . It's been so stop-start

9:42

, you know , and I've funded

9:44

all of it personally , so it's

9:47

a start-up for myself , with the support

9:49

of the guys in the UK , mash

9:51

gang and you know , sharing recipes and going over things

9:54

. I mean the first beer . I didn't know how to brew beer , I

9:56

just liked beer . So I had the brewery

9:58

ask me questions and I'm like , oh shit , I

10:00

don't know . So , you know , I seen George Help

10:02

me , help me , help me , and this was years ago , so he was

10:04

still learning too . So you know , he was

10:06

, I think , flying by the seat of his pants

10:08

, but we got

10:10

away with it and we made a beer and it was really really good . It

10:13

came out well , it was nice , and we called it a West Coast

10:15

Hazy , which is a bit of an oxymoron . Um

10:25

, I mean , I'll put it up to beers I'm making today . I probably think

10:27

it's trash because it's it was too , too many . Uh , it was quite , it was very

10:29

bitter and it's a lip puckering . Um

10:32

, people really enjoyed it , though . Um still got

10:34

some good reviews on it . Um

10:36

, and I think from there we did a

10:38

collab with big shed

10:40

, the brewery . We made a Berliner

10:43

mango what

10:46

was it ? It was a mango

10:48

and passion fruit called Hellvaser

10:50

. So I had the Hellvaser

10:54

logo on it and we had our artist

10:56

, the guy we were using in , I think he's in Indonesia

10:58

. He did all the logo design

11:01

, but we had a lot less

11:03

input on how the beer was made

11:05

. So it was

11:07

weak and it

11:09

was okay , but it wasn't a mash gang beer

11:12

. Yeah , yeah , yeah , do you know what

11:14

I mean ? It

11:16

didn't have our input , didn't have our touch on it

11:18

. So , yeah , if anything , that beer

11:20

probably nearly broke me . I made

11:22

too much of it and couldn't sell it all . I still had cases

11:25

and cases in

11:28

storage and I ended up . We have

11:30

a deposit scheme here in Australia , so by

11:32

the end of it it was past best before , so I just had

11:34

to dispose of them and get my 10 cents

11:36

for every can and stick that back in the bank

11:38

. It

11:41

wasn't , yeah , a lot of hard lessons that I learned

11:43

. Yeah , but in that , yeah

11:46

, and expensive , you know , it's not tens

11:48

of thousands of dollars , but a few thousand dollars . So

11:50

you know , but we're making that back now

11:52

.

11:52

So it's all good Live

11:55

and learn with business and brewing , and

11:57

you know , yeah , especially when it's such

11:59

a new thing because it's one thing

12:01

going into like making

12:06

beer and brewing for the first time or , like you know , starting that sort of venture

12:08

, but then when you add in the and let's make it alcohol free

12:10

and let's do it in australia

12:13

, which is , from what you've said , you know , four

12:15

years behind , maybe uk

12:18

markets that's a real fucking

12:20

uphill , uphill , um slope

12:22

to climb oh yeah

12:24

, it was tough , and I think the minimum brew

12:26

length was 2,000 litres .

12:28

So you're talking about two pallets of beer with

12:30

no one knowing the brand . Where I know in the UK

12:33

I think they started . Was

12:36

it U-Brew , wasn't it in Bermondsey where they first made the

12:38

first lot , like 100 litres ? So you know a few

12:40

, maybe 50 or 60 cans , and it just sold

12:42

out , sold out , sold out . You know a few , maybe

12:44

50 or 60 cans , and it just sold out . So I was like I wish

12:46

I had that luxury . I've got to make several thousand

12:48

cans and it's costing

12:50

about $14,000 .

12:56

Yeah and like to post it like elsewhere is like oh yeah , that will be a fortune

12:58

.

12:59

Oh , that's the problem in Australia too . Yeah , it's such

13:01

a big country and our logistics

13:03

, I mean , suck and

13:05

it's very expensive to to get beer around the country .

13:07

So you don't realize how big Australia

13:09

is until it . Well , for for

13:11

me it's . I don't think about

13:14

the size of Australia until it comes up on

13:16

, like some , did you know that Australia

13:19

is x big and then you go , nah

13:22

. Then you look at a map and you go , oh

13:24

shit .

13:28

That's fucking huge , it is ridiculous . So for context , I'm flying

13:31

up to Port Douglas . So I live in

13:33

Brisbane , north Brisbane at the moment and

13:36

I'm flying up to Port Douglas , which is in the same

13:38

state as me , as Queensland , and it's

13:40

just over a two-hour flight , fuck

13:42

. So I was looking

13:44

at driving . I was like maybe I'll drive and save some

13:46

money . And then I threw into Google Maps and

13:48

it said 28 hours drive . I was like

13:51

fuck , I'm flying . To the

13:53

same state . That's it . Yeah , yeah , same state . It's massive

13:57

. So we are southeast of Queensland , so

13:59

near the border to New South Wales . Probably

14:02

two hours drive to the border , but to get up to the top of the state

14:05

, yeah , it's a you can probably spend 30 hours driving

14:07

and still be on land that's

14:09

mad .

14:09

See , I knew it was big from

14:11

google , but I didn't know it was that big .

14:13

That's fucking wild it

14:16

is yeah , yeah and then . So imagine , you know

14:18

what the couriers want to want to charge to

14:20

sort of cut the beer around the country . It's . You

14:23

know , we , we charge a ten dollar flat rate on

14:25

the website . Um , it's hit and miss

14:27

major metros , it's . It costs about ten

14:29

dollars . So I think I'll lose about 50 cents on those

14:31

. But anywhere obscure , you know

14:33

, it's sort of like 25 dollars . You know , yeah

14:36

, damn it , it's my 15 bucks

14:38

, it's all my profit . But you

14:40

know , cans in hands , how

14:42

are delivery services over there ?

14:44

because there's a big thing over here with delivery

14:46

drivers just being like very

14:49

loose with boxes

14:51

.

14:51

Yeah , I've been fortunate

14:54

this time around . I haven't had any damaged

14:56

ones . I did when I was running in the beer subscription

14:59

. But I feel it's down to the area

15:01

and the people , the couriers in the area , so sometimes

15:04

the guiders wouldn't turn up Like

15:07

they'll sit out for us . I was running

15:09

it at my garage when I was very small and

15:11

I'd sit in the reception area for like

15:13

a week and I'd have to ring them up and then

15:15

I'd end up driving to the depot because they're

15:17

like sat there for you know , a week and a half . Yeah

15:20

, yeah , yeah . So I'd get there and have a go

15:22

at the manager . I don't know . I think they move

15:24

people around , so they sort of service one area very

15:26

well , so everyone's happy with them , and then

15:28

he racks off somewhere else . So then there's no one

15:31

servicing the area . Right , everyone gets the shits

15:33

. But there's maybe three or four major

15:35

providers . But

15:37

up here yeah , where I'm

15:39

at now , it's been fortunate the

15:46

guy turns up every day . Um , I've had bees shipped from fresh from the brewery

15:48

up to my place and I've had it the next day and it's sydney to brisbane is a is an hour and

15:50

a half flight , so it's it's quite a distance , um

15:53

, so yeah , they pretty quick . I think it's just

15:55

lucky . Depends on the route , depends on the driver . Yeah

15:57

, um , but no , no damage so far . But

15:59

I have had , yeah , some damage in the past

16:01

. They just I don't

16:04

put fragile stickers on . I think if you put that on they

16:06

go . Challenge accepted .

16:09

I can see that man . It's like working

16:11

in fast food places , like

16:14

having known people that have worked in them

16:16

when I was 16 , 17 . So

16:18

the shit that people do to that food when

16:21

you know it , it's like fucking hell . I

16:25

had a conversation with a mate the other day and we

16:27

ordered a mcdonald's and

16:29

we're eating it and he just turned to me and said we've

16:32

just let a 15 year old make our dinner and

16:34

it's just like oh shit , yeah , that's gross

16:37

. Like yeah , yeah

16:39

, you're asking for trouble , aren't you ? I see that like

16:41

fragile sticker . Someone goes , is it

16:43

?

16:44

freaking shake it . Oh

16:47

yeah , yeah , absolutely . I mean , they're notorious

16:49

here as well as I think they . If

16:51

it's for the australia post or the main

16:53

postal service , if it's a contract courier

16:55

, they get paid extra . If they come

16:58

to my place and just drive by

17:00

and then drop it off at the depot

17:02

, it's like two trips for them . So

17:04

they'll put a , they'll throw the card at my letterbox

17:06

, basically say you weren't home , but I am bloody home

17:09

, and then they get paid twice . I

17:11

did learn about that . So a lot of times

17:13

things don't get delivered . You get the card

17:16

but you're like I've stayed at home from work

17:18

for this because I've watched probably a beer

17:20

or something silly I've ordered I want this bloody beer tonight

17:22

and you bastard , you

17:25

didn't even look . I've

17:30

heard of people seeing them creeping up to the letterbox

17:33

and slipping the thing in their mouth .

17:36

I have chased a driver down the street

17:39

before because there's

17:41

two different delivery services

17:43

that I tend to get and one of them always

17:46

takes it to this shop . That I hate . I hate

17:48

going to , um , yeah , like it's

17:50

just really dirty and it takes

17:52

them about 20 minutes to find my name

17:54

and to then find the case . And you've

17:57

got people going in trying to like sell

17:59

their sim card sim cards um

18:01

, to then buy them back a week

18:03

later , and things like that . And it's just I don't

18:05

like it in there , um , and

18:08

this same fucker keeps

18:10

doing that to me and being like just

18:13

oh yeah , you've , you've not been in , and

18:15

then driving it back and it's like just leave it on the door , man

18:17

, that's a necessary evil though , isn't it for

18:19

getting beer or anything for that man

18:21

, anything you order online , amazon

18:23

, I mean amazon's not very popular .

18:25

It's weird australians haven't taken amazon . Australia's

18:27

like fuck you amazon . We use a thing called timu , which comes

18:29

out of china , which is awesome . I was

18:31

still speaking to a guy I was at the brewery the other day and

18:34

, yeah , they were ordering pizza ovens off timu

18:36

, which is the australian equivalent of

18:38

amazon .

18:38

It's just become like a thing over here , but

18:40

it's like , yeah , really really

18:43

cheap , like just garbage

18:46

stuff , um , yeah , yeah

18:48

, so is there a good side of team here

18:50

? It's for like treasure to be found .

18:52

My wife buys things off there . I think she got a team

18:55

delivery today . She's always getting teamy stuff

18:57

and it arrives the next day . It's like what ? What

18:59

amazon was in the uk . I remember when I was living there

19:02

here's a funny story I bought a drone of

19:04

amazon . I was living , I used to live on the th . Here's a funny story I bought a drone

19:06

of Amazon . I used to live on the Thames in Rotherhithe

19:08

and I bought this drone and it was just coming

19:10

on dusk . So I raced downstairs and I plugged

19:12

it in , I took it up and flew it and

19:15

then , of course , I didn't charge a battery . So

19:18

I get this low battery warning and I'm in a no-fly zone anyway because of City Airport

19:20

. But I'm like it's coming back to me

19:22

and I'm like trying to get it back and the thing's just dropping

19:25

and dropping and dropping and then it hits the

19:27

fence , right on the fence line to the

19:29

river and just goes tink into

19:31

the drink . And I'm like , oh , and

19:34

it was like 200 quid this thing . And

19:36

then so I raced back inside . I was like , oh , no , what

19:38

am I going to do ? She knows I've spent 200

19:40

pounds on this drone and it's in the temps

19:42

. I'll just order another one and

19:45

tell her . The delivery guy didn't turn up , so I just

19:47

ordered . She knows your story now . So I I

19:50

ordered another one and

19:52

it came the next day . And she's saying from work

19:54

. She's like , oh , your drone's . He's like , oh , cool great , oh

19:56

sweet charge the battery up and take it up the park on

20:01

the weekend . Oh , man but

20:03

it's just the delivery service . I knew it would come the

20:05

next day and it was like 6 pm at night

20:08

, but it was just the service . Then

20:10

with I don't know what it's like over there now . This was five

20:12

, six years ago . It was amazing . But

20:14

yeah , australia , we definitely don't get that level of service

20:17

. It's surprising . I

20:20

think I did order a book and it came the next

20:22

day and I was like huh what ?

20:23

why is that here ? I was expecting a week . It's

20:25

kind of someplace . It's like same

20:27

day now , like if I order something , if

20:29

I ordered something now , I could probably get it for eight

20:31

and it's like sweet . But

20:33

then I do have a massive fucking amazon warehouse

20:35

like three minutes away from my house . Okay

20:38

, cool , it's quite useful yeah , it's

20:41

useful . If they've got the shit that you want , it's good for

20:43

like weed killer and things like that , which

20:47

is great . I'm pissed off with weeds

20:49

at the moment , like I did my back in spraying

20:52

yeah , not even pulling weeds out of the

20:54

garden , just bending to spray

20:56

them and yeah , my back

20:58

is in agony and it's like what the fuck has has happened

21:00

. Man , like when did this happen to me

21:02

? What's going on ? I can't do anything

21:04

physical without being just like in

21:06

pain for a week . It's fucking scary

21:09

.

21:10

You guys are in summer now , is that ? Why are the weeds

21:12

?

21:13

yeah , yeah well , we're supposed to be , but it's been

21:15

.

21:15

The weather's been fucking awful um

21:18

, so summer's normally on a thursday , there isn't it ?

21:20

yeah , usually thursday through to . If you're

21:22

lucky , you get get to Saturday afternoon

21:26

, you get that little teaser , don't you ?

21:27

And then the cold just comes . You get like a week of

21:30

heat .

21:32

The worst thing is and I don't know if this is global warming or

21:34

what , but the worst thing is now you get the heat

21:36

for a week and it's like this is too much

21:39

, man , up

21:41

to like 40 degrees And's like what the

21:43

fuck , man , I can't do this , I'm

21:45

not meant terrible over there and well , it's

21:47

not designed for that there .

21:49

I mean , I remember back in that day

21:51

and if you get to 30 when I was living there

21:53

and people , my mates back home , we go , it's only 30 , that's

21:55

not how it gets to 45 in

21:58

. You know where I'm from , where I go ? I'll go from western sydney

22:00

, which is in a valley before the

22:02

blue mountains , a place called penrith . Um

22:04

, I call it the arsehole of sydney

22:06

. So it's the hottest place

22:08

in summer . I think one day , three or four years ago

22:10

, it was the hottest place on earth at 47

22:12

degrees . But in winter it

22:15

gets below zero . So it's

22:17

the arsehole of sydney . So I've been called out

22:19

in my earlier 20s go

22:22

out for boys , uh , just in a t-shirt

22:24

and jeans , because it gets to 20 22 in

22:26

the day in winter . So you , you know it's

22:28

warm enough for a t-shirt and you go out and that's my

22:30

climate . 22 , yeah , that's

22:32

my climate . But you sort of walk out

22:34

of the bar or the club at 2 am and it's

22:36

like minus two . You're like

22:38

fuck it's cold and

22:41

then there's no cabs around , so I gotta

22:43

walk an hour home with a roadie

22:45

and it's like , oh , it's so cold , or

22:49

usually you've got flip-flops on and it's

22:51

absolutely freezing , so it used to catch

22:53

me out . But yeah , up

22:56

in Queensland , it's love you , it's getting colder

22:58

here now . I think it's got down to 12 today , but it

23:00

still gets to 22 , 23, . Pretty

23:03

consistent . So

23:06

it's , yeah , a very nice client , but very hot in summer , I must say yeah you're right , though

23:08

.

23:08

We're not like in the uk , we're not built for

23:11

it . It's not like there's no , no one's

23:13

got a ac unit , like

23:15

unless you're doing very well for yourself

23:17

, so it's just , you're just sat

23:19

in it and there's like it's

23:21

just heat . You've kind of got a

23:24

big fucking layer of cloud

23:26

and then you've just got heat . It's

23:29

not like a nice crisp sunshine

23:32

. Drink a load of Radler's , take a load of diatomite

23:34

and see if you survive .

23:38

Everything's double brick and double clay , so it just holds

23:40

the fucking heating yeah .

23:42

Oh no , we need to be ready for the winters

23:44

that we had in the 70s , where the snow

23:47

came up to your window . So it's like , man

23:49

, I'm lucky . If I mean I

23:51

say lucky , unlucky because of work , but

23:53

to see a light frost in the

23:56

winter now , it's fine , just

23:58

chill yeah , yeah

24:00

, okay , yeah , yeah , it's funny here , us

24:02

aussies , we sit to laugh at you english when it gets hot over there .

24:04

Yeah , that's not hot . That we sit to laugh at you English when it gets hot over there , yeah , that's not hot . That's not hot . But

24:06

unless you experience it , it is hot .

24:09

Oh , I also just like to complain , you

24:11

know yeah .

24:12

Oh , yeah , yeah , no , you are British , so you know , that makes sense . Yeah

24:14

, bloody hell .

24:19

So we've had fosters and we've had complaining

24:21

. I think we're even on the stereotype

24:24

front .

24:25

I agree with that . Yeah , settle

24:27

on a truce , eh .

24:29

So beer-wise . So you've just done Beach

24:32

Goon . And there was the

24:34

oat cream before that , and what was

24:36

the ?

24:36

other one it was Regulate and Gang Gang

24:39

was a biscotti pastry style . I've got Regulate

24:41

in my fridge .

24:42

I'm sure I do .

24:43

That's the oat cream the Regulate ? Oh no , okay

24:45

so .

24:45

I drank that . And then what was the other one

24:47

with one ?

24:48

drop . Have you got Gang Gang ? Is it like a green can , a

24:50

dark green can ? I think it is a green can , like a guy on a

24:52

bike . That's really nice . So that was a collab

24:54

we did with One Drop . So

24:56

I'm not sure if people

24:58

a very

25:01

well-known for their sales and

25:03

ice cream , milkshake , these and anything

25:06

stupid to put in a beer they're the best at

25:08

it in Australia . They're very

25:10

. Their beers sell out like hotcakes . Um

25:12

, awesome guys , awesome team . But yeah

25:14

, really push limits for what you can get . Probably

25:16

like a vault city equivalent . I would say Okay

25:19

, yeah , so that that level and that that

25:22

nice or four 50 North from you

25:27

can say them in their conversation and nobody would

25:29

bat an eyelid in Australia . They're that good

25:31

. So , yeah , they

25:33

reached out to us last year , probably this

25:35

time last year , and said

25:37

, look , we want to do a collab on a non-out , can

25:40

you guys come in ? And we don't know how to make this

25:42

. So I flew

25:44

down on brew day and we had a lot of conversation

25:46

beforehand with Jordan just tossing ideas around

25:48

and we settled on that stout called

25:50

Gang Gang , the biscotti pastry

25:53

biscotti stout , and that was all

25:55

. Nick Nick's the head brewer , amazing

25:57

brewer , really super chill guy too . I

26:03

like going down there and shooting

26:05

the shit with him when I'm in the brewery . But

26:07

yeah , he came up with the concept of it

26:09

. We sort of I think we used the Anxiety Sank base and then Nick just flavoured

26:11

the shit out of it the way One Drop does . So it was

26:13

like a mash gang base with a massive

26:15

, heavily One Drop influence on the flavours

26:17

, so that beer

26:19

came out really well . So yeah

26:21

, if you get into that , I'll be interested to see your thoughts . It

26:25

was a banger . And then we stumbled . We

26:27

did throw a lot of oats . Oh no , we

26:30

soaked the darker grains overnight

26:33

just to stop any astringency

26:35

. That was the idea behind it . And then

26:37

nick said , do you ever soak the oats overnight , like

26:39

make an oat milk ? And we're like no

26:41

. And then john's like no , but that sounds like a

26:43

great idea . So we went , let's do that on

26:45

the next one . So let's . Oh

26:48

, so that's where the idea was born . Yeah

26:50

, so we , nick , I normally

26:52

just fly down in the morning , uh , like get

26:54

up and get the red iron and shoot down , um

26:56

, and spend the day , or sometimes I'll spend the night . So

26:58

I've got a buddy of mine , my best mate . He lives in bondi

27:01

so I'll go and stay . He's it's like half an hour drive

27:03

from the brewery , um , so

27:05

I usually go hang out with him for dinner afterwards . But

27:08

yeah , so nick , the night before soaked the oats

27:10

and then we drained that and moved that to

27:12

the kettle and it was

27:14

just like a tub of oat milk in

27:16

this kettle and I was

27:18

like it smells

27:20

a bit sour and I was like

27:23

this is going to be interesting . And

27:25

then what else did we throw ? We threw everything

27:27

at that beer . We had the dehydrated

27:30

oat milk as well . You can buy

27:32

it in like a big bag and we threw everything

27:34

at that beer .

27:34

We had the dehydrated oat milk as well .

27:35

You can buy it in like a big bag , so we tipped someone at it . I like doing the

27:37

Colab beers because there's no cost spared on

27:40

them . It's like I can throw all the sexy ingredients

27:42

at it . But when we're making the mash gang ones I

27:44

still throw a lot of expensive ingredients

27:46

at it . But I'm being a bit

27:48

more conservative because it's my money .

27:51

Yeah , that's the thing when , when you're looking at what it's

27:53

costing , it's a lot easier to go ah

27:56

, do we need it ? Can we get ? Can

27:58

we buy without it , like in the early

28:00

days it's ?

28:01

yeah , I can imagine yeah , it's , yeah

28:03

, because it it's . It's not cheap to contract brew

28:06

as well . So , and it does . Our beers are a

28:08

few dollars more per can um

28:10

, most other ones that are available for

28:12

retail retail , but they're way

28:14

better . So I think it's justifiable . But

28:18

anyway , yeah , so we've got the Hoats and that was that

28:20

Regulate beer and what else . We used Superdelic

28:22

on that in the Whirlpool Lotus

28:26

Salvo , which is like an oil that comes

28:28

in like a tin . So have you ever done any home brewing with

28:30

a concentrate ? It was like that sort of thing . We had to throw

28:32

it in hot water , then tip it into the whirlpool

28:35

as well , and then I I

28:37

sort of I only turn up for brew day , so all the conditioning

28:39

and any dry hopping nick's doing on

28:41

his own later on . So I'm not sure what else he threw in

28:43

that thing , but it came out amazing .

28:45

It was okay , yeah I'm gonna drink that tonight

28:47

. Um , because it's sat

28:50

in by , I've said this and it sounds like I'm

28:52

being , it sounds like I'm not appreciative

28:55

. But I say like the one

28:57

issue with doing what I kind of do with

28:59

the whole I'm going to drink this beer and talk

29:01

about it , this beer and talk about it , this beer and talk about it

29:03

is that you get so many beers and

29:06

when you get down to like five left you go oh fuck

29:08

, I

29:14

need to order another , like 40 different beers . And then you just don't get to drink the ones

29:17

that you want to drink , because something will come up or like someone will do you a real

29:19

solid and be like can I send you this beer

29:21

? And then you think , well , I need to talk about this one now , like

29:23

early doors . And

29:25

then podcast episode comes out , beer

29:27

club stuff and it's like fuck , there's

29:29

beers I want to drink just for me , man , but

29:32

I've only got one of them . I

29:34

can't drink it and not film it .

29:38

And it's like Somebody's got to do this job though , mate . Oh

29:40

no , it's ridiculous and it's tough .

29:42

It's a tough task .

29:43

It sucks that it's you . You get to drink

29:45

beer for free .

29:46

Yeah , I'll take that one for the team .

29:48

Yeah , Unfortunately

29:50

you've got to do it .

29:51

I'm sorry , it is mad . You're for king

29:53

and country mate . It's

29:59

what a queen would have wanted , I

30:01

think , before she went . As he's

30:03

laying there going , it's my one regret

30:06

that she didn't live to see just

30:08

how far I would come in the alcohol-free

30:10

beer world , because

30:13

I think she'd have been so proud 100%

30:17

.

30:18

I'm sure she is from up above . She's looking down saying Ben

30:20

, I don't think she is . I

30:25

think there's a mother shooting her family . She

30:27

might be somewhere else .

30:31

Yeah , yeah , yeah , but I won't

30:33

say any more because in five

30:35

years' time , if our country keeps going how it is

30:37

, then that will be . I could be executed

30:39

for that comment . Yeah well , you better

30:41

be kidding me . Keep going the way we're going . I'm

30:44

still planning to come . The quink , the

30:46

quink . I'm nervous now I'm

30:48

thinking about it . Back

30:50

to beer . I

30:54

do find it mad , for for me , like you were saying earlier about um

30:56

doing my AF beer club and stuff and I

30:58

find it wild , for I'm actually

31:01

I'm not very educated on the matter

31:03

at all . I've got no fucking idea how

31:05

you'd make beer , because I'd make it if I did , because

31:08

I've got a real main character , complex , but

31:18

I just love drinking it and I got obsessed with talking to breweries and being like you guys

31:20

make good beer . Talk to me about beer . I

31:22

want to learn about beer . I want to talk to me about

31:24

alcohol-free beer . This is fucking fascinating

31:27

and it's just

31:29

kind of gone from there . I

31:31

mean I'm nowhere , nowhere really . I'd love to be , I'd

31:34

love to not have to work and just talk about beer

31:36

. It'll be fucking amazing um

31:39

, how many subscribers you guys got now

31:41

on the afb club so , from

31:44

speaking to robin , it was

31:46

up to about 180 when

31:49

, um , when robin was there . I'm pretty sure

31:51

I don't know what the exact number is

31:53

now , but I know that

31:55

there's a . So there's been a weird

31:57

transition where they've had to

31:59

come off the original

32:02

platform and on to like

32:04

a new one . So they had to resubscribe , um

32:07

, because , yeah , it was some . I've got no idea

32:10

what happened , um , but

32:12

something weird happened . So I think

32:14

it's kind of . I think it has taken a hit with

32:16

that , but it's trying to build that

32:18

back up now um , yeah

32:20

, yeah , yeah , that's always a challenge .

32:22

I know when I've had subscription service before

32:24

, it would come up every month like , oh shit

32:26

, I didn't want this , but I'll take it , I'll

32:29

cancel it , and then you forget , and then it turns up again .

32:32

Oh yeah , I do that all the time .

32:37

And then , if you've moved , I've

32:39

donated money to the gym as well

32:41

. Got to keep them in business .

32:45

Yeah , that's exactly what I've been doing for six months . I did six months of going to

32:47

the gym when I stopped drinking and I was like I feel great of going to the gym when I stopped

32:49

drinking and I was like I feel great . And now I'm just like

32:51

, ah shit , now I don't have time . That's

32:53

what I tell myself no , I don't have time to do this . But then

32:56

I just sit and play PlayStation for most of my

32:58

day and then frantically try and

33:00

catch up with all the other stuff I've got

33:02

to do later in the evening and

33:04

then I'm exhausted

33:08

from my day job . This with having

33:11

a family and having an actual life , like

33:13

I complain about having

33:16

to drink beer for free , although it's , you know , kind

33:18

of tongue-in-cheek , um , and kind of woe is

33:20

me , but for you it must be fucking tough

33:23

man it is

33:25

.

33:25

It is hard and as I did

33:27

nearly chuck it in with the MASH gang

33:29

stuff , probably just before

33:31

the first collab with OneDrop

33:34

, so , nick , if you're listening , you saved MASH

33:36

gang Australia . I think I was talking

33:38

to Jord about it , about

33:40

just the time and the money

33:43

, and it wasn't generating income and

33:45

it's just like I just can't do this anymore . But

33:47

he talked me around and then

33:49

, as the universe does it , nick from

33:52

one drop sent me a random dm on instagram

33:54

, said , hey , do you want to come to a collab ? And I was like , fuck , yeah , I

33:57

love one drop , let's go do this . I was

33:59

, I was like one of my favorite hype

34:01

breweries in australia , as I yeah , it's like

34:03

bucket list kind of shit . I was like

34:05

, yeah , of course I want to come down and make some beer at one

34:08

drop , brewing like , and then it's just taken

34:10

off since then . So it sort of kept me in the game

34:12

. And back on to beer . Yeah , so we've

34:14

got another one in the tank at the moment . Yes

34:17

, that was my next question . I was down there

34:19

a couple of weeks ago . So it's

34:21

a West Coast Pilsner , nice

34:23

. It's called Parallels . So

34:25

we've used Superdelic again in the Whirlpool . What

34:33

else can I tell ? It's got a . We've used an italian pilsner malt , um carahel , which is a caramel

34:35

malt , and a little tiny

34:37

touch of manuka smoked malt

34:40

to give it a little smoky naughty

34:42

bitch . It'll make those

34:44

dank west coast cones

34:46

pop like a mother . So

34:48

I'm yeah , I'm

34:50

excited about this one . I think it's going to be awesome . Um

34:52

, it's just past . I just got

34:55

some photos and some info from nick

34:57

yesterday , so it's all in spec and looking good

34:59

and we're canning that on the 12th

35:01

of june . But I'm away so I've got

35:04

to go to my storage place . Um

35:06

, I probably get up here like the 14th or

35:08

15th , so I think I get back

35:10

the day at my arrive at my house or

35:12

not my house , sorry at my storage . Uh

35:14

, place down the road .

35:16

So , yeah , I'm not gonna

35:18

taste it till like three weeks I'm

35:20

like oh , man , yeah

35:22

, that's like I find that you

35:24

, you , you can like make

35:26

something . I mean , you don't get to drink it until

35:29

like way , way later . Like there's

35:31

some , um , there's some beers that I drink before

35:33

the the people that made them drink

35:35

. It's like what , how's

35:37

this like ? It just doesn't make sense to me . It's like

35:39

don't you just drink it there , and obviously

35:41

there's a lot more .

35:42

That goes on then in all of yeah

35:44

yeah , um , yeah , and within

35:46

that same window too . So we've actually got some beer

35:48

from the uk coming over . Oh

35:50

nice , from you know , from the

35:52

lads over there . So I've got a good mix

35:55

. I'm just gonna spill the beans . I'll tell you what

35:57

I've got coming . I did have this prepared

36:00

earlier , just so . I've got low life cult , chug

36:02

, stoop , hog , cinnabon , pipea

36:05

out of nowhere . Unlucky charms

36:07

, I think that's it

36:09

. Yeah , so like eight Nice Eight

36:12

different beers . Yeah , so they

36:15

arrive . It was meant to be here end

36:18

of April , but the Suez

36:20

Canal had pirates in it , so they went around Africa

36:22

, damn pirates .

36:27

And now it's in Always ruining shit .

36:29

Oh fucking pirates , Tell me about it . And

36:31

now I'm tracking it and it's in , always ruining shit . Oh fucking pirates , tell me about

36:33

it . And now I'm tracking it and it's in . I think it left Busan and

36:35

it's on its way to Shanghai , and then it

36:37

comes to Brisbane . I think it lands in Brisbane

36:40

in like five or six days , but

36:42

I'll be in Port Douglas .

36:43

So again , I was just thinking

36:45

it would be so mashgang if all

36:47

of the stock got stolen by pirates and

36:49

it was like you and george had to go and deal with

36:51

it to get it back and

36:53

we would , then we

36:55

would there's a whole story

36:58

there pirate

37:03

ipa or something .

37:04

stolen beer I mean

37:07

we've actually , so i'm'm

37:09

in . So my wife's actually in

37:12

the UK May next year

37:14

for my sister-in-law's wedding in Yorkshire , so

37:16

I've already told George that I'm there in 12

37:18

months . Let's fucking get together and make a

37:20

proper Caleb . We share recipes

37:23

and stupid ideas on chat

37:25

together and sort of look over each

37:27

other's recipes and designs and

37:29

have a bit of a guess what we think the ABV is going to learn . That's a

37:31

nerdy thing we do by the grain , but I think that

37:33

it will tenuate to 20 and you're going to

37:35

end up with 0.38 um , so

37:38

we do nerd out on that . So but yeah , I think we're

37:40

planning on getting together and doing something properly together

37:42

instead of just shoot the shit as we do

37:44

yeah , but when we we get on a meeting or a

37:46

chat , we normally just talk absolute bollocks

37:48

for an hour . Then we go oh right , there's business stuff we need

37:50

to discuss .

37:52

Yeah , I bet that is one of the problems

37:54

with kind of talking to like

37:57

dealing with them in that kind of

37:59

sense where you want to just talk about , you

38:01

know , getting shit done sometimes and

38:04

then you're like actually I just want to catch up with you .

38:06

Like how you do it ? Yeah , yeah , it ends up a catch

38:08

because we've been like man , he's been flat out , and so

38:10

has James moving in the States and back and

38:12

forth . And I think I messaged him the other day . Sort of can't

38:15

remember what I he did something . Oh , I think he's sending

38:17

something over for this beer . He was yeah , he's sending some

38:19

stuff over for this beer that I can't source in Australia

38:21

. So that's getting DHL'd over

38:23

and

38:26

I'm like home . And he's like , yeah , I'm home , that's great

38:28

. Like , just don't listen to me , enjoy your

38:30

time at home stay there

38:32

. You've been away for a while yeah

38:35

, yeah , yeah , yeah , I spent some time

38:37

with the fam and stuff . So yeah they're

38:39

, yeah , they've been very busy , but you know

38:41

it's all paying off . It's it's really starting

38:43

to become a global entity and you know the dream

38:45

is that it's all one big umbrella and

38:48

we all work full time and just send

38:50

the beers from Australia to the U S , to the UK

38:52

and just do a triangle of love , of

38:54

beers that we're making . I'm going to

38:56

pitch .

38:58

I'm going to pitch to launch mash gang South

39:00

of Birmingham and I'm going to , I'm going

39:02

to front . Yeah , yeah , mgsb

39:05

, I could sell Birmingham tap water

39:07

that would be the to the rest of

39:09

the UK . That

39:11

would be once the rest of the UK . That would be it Once the rest of our water systems

39:14

are polluted , like they're getting , and

39:16

like infected by shit . Yeah

39:19

, in Devon at the moment , so right south of the country

39:21

, like you can't drink the tap water

39:23

at the moment because there's some fucking

39:27

like something from an animal has got into

39:29

it and there's a parasite . That's

39:31

the word I couldn't find . Yeah , it's a parasite

39:34

.

39:35

You know , Brisbane water is the same . It's terrible

39:37

. And there was a parasite

39:39

and I think it was water , my

39:41

neighbour , she got it and then

39:44

I got it , and then my wife got it and

39:46

I think the kids got it and we're just like where's this ? And

39:52

my neighbour got really ill with it . She was having

39:55

body shakes and she

39:58

couldn't heal and I think she ended up going

40:00

to like a naturopath and she

40:02

was on all sorts of stuff . But it actually made her better

40:05

than what the modern science could do for her

40:07

. It would take some iodine , I think it was

40:09

. It was something to do with the pituitary gland and

40:12

she stopped eating pork because of the DNA

40:14

in the meats close to humours . It was very holistic

40:18

but it worked for her and it was like now

40:20

she's down when he speaks , she's like I feel so much better . It was like a

40:22

year that she felt terrible

40:24

and it was this parasite in the fucking

40:26

water . And I was down in Sydney the

40:28

other week and I had a glass of water . I was

40:31

like , oh , this is nice , you

40:33

know it's nice . Speaking

40:38

of water , I'm going to segue into liquid death , because that shit's in australia now and it's fucking

40:40

expensive , but it's fucking delicious yeah

40:42

, it's so good , it's so nice

40:45

. It's eight dollars a can here . It's . You only get it

40:47

at 7-eleven in australia and it's eight bucks

40:49

a can , so it's like four pounds , four pounds

40:51

, um , and

40:53

I , yeah , I just say to the guy I'll get fuel and I'll

40:55

buy . I like the sparkling and the lime

40:57

, so I'll buy two cans . It's like $16 , and the

40:59

guy's all looking at me , yeah , and they're too expensive

41:02

. Wanky water too . And

41:05

there's a brand there's two in Australia that's

41:07

tried to mimic them . One's called Thirst

41:09

Trap . Okay , and it

41:12

tastes crap . I bought it from

41:14

we have like a big supermarket chain he called woolworths

41:17

, which is not related to the woolworths in the uk . Right

41:19

, and I bought it and I was like I was down , I was

41:21

sitting on bondi beach , oh , this would be lovely . I've got coffee and

41:23

a lovely big jug of spark

41:26

. I love sparkling water . I don't know , it's one of my second

41:28

and favorite things to drink other than beer .

41:29

Um , and it was crap

41:32

and I'm like , oh , there's a liquid

41:34

death on it yeah , yeah

41:36

, liquid death is like it's amazing

41:38

, um , and I

41:41

I didn't discover it until like quite

41:43

recently , really um , and

41:45

I've noticed it's like it's it's a brewer's drink

41:47

of choice , like whenever I've gone into breweries

41:50

, it's just cans of liquid death everywhere

41:52

.

41:53

Yeah , okay , okay it

41:55

seems it's the water . It's the water , it's the water

41:57

quality . I think , as a brewer , you appreciate

41:59

the water . It'll make you be like it's

42:01

.

42:02

Yeah , that is one thing that I

42:04

do notice in terms of a

42:06

palette and this isn't me just bullshitting

42:09

like you can taste

42:11

when water has

42:13

been I don't know what you buy it from like

42:15

storage containers or something , or it's been put through

42:17

a process to make it really clean with london

42:20

water . I think you have to do something to it

42:22

because london water is dirty yeah

42:24

, it's very hard on the water , isn't it ? and you

42:27

can taste when a beer has been made with

42:29

london water . Because of that , because

42:31

it tastes like really , really clean . That's

42:34

the only way I can describe it . I know what I mean

42:36

, but I don't know what .

42:37

Yeah , yeah , no , I I think I know , I

42:39

think I know you , man , it's the , that's the . I think

42:41

it's quite heavy . The london water , I can't . I

42:43

haven't looked at it for ages . Brisbane water

42:45

, funnily , it tastes crap but it's quite high

42:48

in uh . Uh

42:50

, it's sulfate , I think , which is

42:52

good for hops , so it's good for hazy beers . Brisbane

42:55

, where sydney's water is more chlorine

42:57

heavy , which gives you a better mouthfeel . I'm

42:59

just learning water profiling , so don't quote

43:01

me on this stuff . Um , part of it being

43:03

a brewer journey , um

43:05

, but yeah , so one drop , they've got an ro

43:07

. It's a reverse osmosis that strips all the minerals

43:10

out of it . So you've got a clean

43:12

, a clean slate to start with , and then you

43:14

can profile the beer based on the style

43:16

. So it's you know . But in

43:18

saying that non-outs are a different ball

43:21

game , again there's , you have to do some different

43:23

witchcraft to get the mouthfeel

43:25

, as you would oppose to a standard

43:27

beer . And when I speak to brewers

43:30

, um , as I'm getting around the place , yeah

43:32

, that when we do a make a non-out , they're like it's like

43:34

everything I've learned to how to make beer and just flip

43:36

that upside down and that's how you make it . And

43:38

it's like yeah , you can't . I

43:42

always say to people you're not making a beer , you're designing

43:44

a beer Because it's

43:46

missing certain elements that a beer would

43:48

have . So you have to come up with ways to get

43:50

that back in . And

43:53

that's the hard part . And I and

43:55

that's the hard part , I think and I have Jordan's agree with this , but I

43:57

do speak to him . I sort of say that

44:00

we didn't learn to brew beer

44:02

, we learned to brew non-alcoholic beer . So

44:05

there's a big difference in that

44:07

. So when

44:09

you're a brewer and you're trying to explain to them , like

44:11

a proper professional brewer , how to make an alcoholic beer , they just disagree

44:13

with everything and you're like no , but I know this works because

44:16

I've trusted it . I , mac , and I like beer . They just disagree with everything and you're

44:18

like no , but I know this works because I've trusted it , I've tried

44:20

it and it's just a , it's different , it's a different process

44:22

. So it's a . Yeah , it's a funny one that

44:24

people and that's why I think some of the best non-out brands

44:27

are made by people that are

44:29

not traditional brewers yeah

44:31

, and that's solely my opinion , but I

44:33

think this is trial and error to try

44:35

to fill those gaps

44:37

that are missing .

44:38

Yeah , well , when you've had none of the kind of when

44:41

you've got no pre-existing

44:43

ideas of how a beer should be done , I

44:47

suppose you go into it with and just go right

44:49

. No , I'm going to do it like this .

44:51

Yeah , it's probably more being naive

44:53

that you will just do it this way , but if you

44:55

already knew that you shouldn't do it that way . Naive that you

44:57

will just do it this way , but if you already knew that you shouldn't do it that way , you wouldn't

44:59

attempt it that way .

44:59

Well , we just yeah , well , I don't know any different , I'll try that way yeah

45:02

, I get that , but I think the breweries that kind

45:04

of that have all the

45:06

brewers that have been making full out and

45:09

then release like a really good alcohol-free beer

45:11

. When you speak to them they'll be like , yeah , I've been

45:13

like pissing around with this for two years

45:15

and finally got it right , and it's like

45:17

okay , it

45:20

takes a long time , I suppose , to

45:22

figure that sort of shit out . Yeah

45:25

yeah , it does .

45:26

I agree with that and it's , I

45:28

mean , a thing that I find in

45:30

Australia . There's a lot of , there's quite a few

45:32

non-out brands , not a lot , but probably 15

45:35

, 20 . I don't know , I

45:39

don't know , I don't think there's anything like the UK or the US , but they

45:41

just make the one beer . Some of them have got three and four out now

45:43

it's

45:47

like come on , just make some more . You've done it once , we're crowdfunding

45:50

to make a new recipe and it's like I

45:53

just made another recipe . I didn't need money

45:55

to do that .

45:56

Yeah , that would really piss me off

45:58

.

45:58

I'd get so pissed off if

46:01

. I was sat watching it .

46:03

I can send it .

46:04

Just make it . Just make it . If it goes wrong , don't

46:06

worry about it , try again .

46:09

There's ways to rescue this Bloody

46:13

hell . Do you think that people are kind of catching on

46:15

to it as a whole the alcohol-free movement in Australia ? Do

46:17

you think that people are kind of catching on to it as a whole , like the alcohol-free movement

46:19

in Australia ? Do you think it's starting to take ?

46:21

off ? I think it

46:23

is . There's definitely still space for it here

46:25

. Like I said earlier , the

46:28

current global economic climate is

46:30

shit out , so people can't afford it anymore

46:32

. They're just drinking booze again because they're having

46:35

a terrible time , because they're so shit .

46:41

I feel like this one is getting is getting pissed . That'll catch up with them

46:43

.

46:43

In five years you'll be . I'm still making this great beer . Um

46:47

, I feel it . It really

46:49

peaked , and it a couple

46:52

years ago . There's no real influencers

46:54

anymore . I can never say that word . I always sound

46:57

like I'm saying influenza , but you know what I mean

46:59

. Uh , there's

47:01

no one really doing that here as

47:03

such as yourself . So 2020

47:05

, there was a guy called john . I don't know if you've ever spoke

47:07

to rad dad john yeah , yeah , yeah

47:10

, yeah .

47:11

So john is it ?

47:12

yeah , john pollock , that's the guy , he's . He's the

47:14

og non-out craft

47:16

beer influencer in Australia . There's an influencer

47:19

.

47:19

I've got a funny story about him after

47:21

this .

47:22

We'll share that . And then I started

47:24

AF Beer Squad and we started chatting and you know

47:27

he's a super chill guy . I didn't care . I felt like I

47:29

was encroached on his space . I think he did

47:31

a . He did like

47:33

an event . There was someone in 2020 with

47:35

someone in the UK

47:38

. They did this big event and he was a speaker on it . My

47:40

wife's like is that what you want to be ? You want to be in La Garnier ? I said

47:42

I don't know , I'm just trying to get more

47:44

awareness around these beers because I think they're great

47:46

. At the time , I was drinking the

47:48

Sobar beverages here with the OG non-ac

47:50

brewery in Australia , an

47:53

Indigenous company . They company um , they use , um . I think you've got

47:55

some over there didn't use . I think I saw them come

47:57

through on a few clubs , so they've got like

47:59

they're using native ingredients . This is

48:01

super it rings a bell . it does ring

48:03

a bell , but yeah , and the the bees

48:05

are really nice as well , so they've been around a long time

48:07

, um , but I just feel as

48:09

though I'm really pushing it

48:11

socially as just a one person

48:14

doing blogs , doing

48:16

podcasts . Maybe I should just have started again at the start

48:18

Match Gang Rates , australian Beers or something I don't

48:20

know . It's hard to , I

48:23

can't be . Just add another thing you have to do . Yeah

48:26

, I can't be that guy when I'm making . I'd

48:28

be too biased . Yeah , I might be

48:30

fucking heaps better .

48:31

Just blow hard , fuck this shit If

48:38

I ever release a beer or for I mean , I don't know how that would happen , but if if it ever happens

48:40

, then it's going to be . I'm going to be insufferable

48:42

, like , even

48:44

if it's terrible , I'm gonna be like this is the best

48:46

beer ever .

48:48

I'm in a group chat on instagram with john's on that

48:50

chat and a few other of the og

48:52

people from the na world in australia from like

48:54

four years ago um , I think you know there

48:56

, chris , he's his instagram's years ago . I think he's going to go there , chris , his Instagram

48:59

is 39 plus one . I think he's 39 plus five

49:01

now , but he

49:04

always gives me shit . He'll go oh , trent's making

49:06

a new beer because he's active on Instagram again and

49:10

I'm like , yes , shut up , damn it . It's

49:12

like a big push for me . And then I had some

49:15

downtime to be a dad and

49:17

then I'm making another beer , so I've got to get out there and

49:19

sell it again . I'm

49:22

like I need a sales guy or I am trying

49:24

to pick up some distributors now so

49:26

I can just make the beer and ship it off to them

49:28

and they sell it and

49:31

I take less of a cut but

49:34

it's far less work . So tell me your John story .

49:37

I need the funny Rad dead john it's . So with john it's , I mean , it's nothing

49:39

really to do with him , it's more to do with me

49:41

just being an idiot . So when I started doing it

49:43

um like talking about alcohol , free beer

49:45

this guy , john bullock , followed

49:47

me and I was like I know a guy called

49:50

john bullock who's in the music scene over

49:52

in the uk in birmingham and he's

49:54

fucking like he loves the sesh

49:56

, and I was like , oh fuck

49:58

, john bullock's gone , sober , sweet . And

50:01

I was kind of being really like almost overly

50:03

friendly with this guy , just like , hey

50:05

, yeah , man , like really candid , um

50:08

, yeah . And I only realized recently

50:10

because he kind of stopped , stopped talking

50:12

and the kind of you know how it is on instagram , sometimes

50:15

you kind of like , yeah , other

50:17

things crop like it's just well

50:19

, it's a fucking , it's weird , isn't it ? Social media

50:21

is weird , um , yeah

50:23

. But then recently I realized that it was a completely

50:26

different guy and I was just like

50:28

, oh shit , man , like I'm

50:30

just so glad that I didn't bump into the

50:33

birmingham . John bullock , be like man

50:35

, how's your sobriety doing ? He's

50:41

like dude , I'm like three lines deep what you on about

50:44

, because that would have been weird

50:46

.

50:47

Yeah , Did you

50:49

explain to our John

50:51

Aussie , John no no , no the

50:53

chat just fizzled . You weirded him out too much

50:55

. Yeah , probably I'll message him after this . That's funny , he wouldn't care . No , no , it's just , it's chat

50:57

just fizzled , you just weirded him out too much . Yeah , yeah , probably I'll message him after this and let him

50:59

know . That's funny , he wouldn't care

51:01

, that he's .

51:02

He's a really nice guy , he's lovely , so it's

51:04

oh

51:07

dear , it's , it's mad , it's

51:09

mad but it is like you say

51:11

, like I think it is important to have people that

51:13

are making the alcohol-free

51:16

beer and then a community that evolves around

51:18

that and it just it kind

51:20

of it blossoms . Or I've noticed that

51:22

it's starting to in the uk over the last two

51:24

years , like since I started . There's

51:26

so many people now that will want

51:28

to talk about it , like new accounts

51:31

will pop up and it's like okay , this

51:33

is a real growing movement for , you know

51:35

, sober people and for full-time drinkers . Um

51:38

, yeah , yeah , because that's the thing

51:40

in it , like alcohol-free beer it's not just for

51:42

sober people , like it's for

51:44

drivers , yeah , etc

51:47

.

51:47

Etc and I think that's one

51:49

of the things I liked about mash gang

51:51

. You know , from early on it was never the

51:53

message of being sober

51:56

or yeah , or regretting what you did the night before

51:58

. It was just hey , these beers

52:00

are just cool and nice and they just happen to have

52:02

no alcohol in it and they're fun

52:04

and they're what you

52:06

want . I do still drink , but I just

52:08

buy hype

52:11

beers . Now I

52:14

homebrew so I've got a little keg system at home

52:16

and I'll make like 3% and 4%

52:18

session beers . But if something stupid

52:21

and big comes out , I'm buying it . Yeah

52:23

, yeah , sure , man , and my wife's like I thought you started

52:25

, you bought all this homebrew kit so you didn't have to buy all that stuff

52:27

. But I'm like , but I still need to buy it .

52:31

Yeah , this is cool . Yeah , this is nice .

52:33

It's a hobby , yeah , and I've had a very

52:35

challenging and difficult relationship

52:37

with alcohol over the hour or one hour . I'm 43

52:39

this year , so 20-odd years . I've

52:43

made a lot of stupid decisions , done a lot of stupid things

52:45

, like we all have , and

52:48

I've quit a few times in the months . That my wife's like

52:50

, but it's your hobby , you're

52:53

not getting smashed anymore , you just like

52:55

drinking them because you like the , the

52:57

fun and the community , so she

53:00

excuses me and enables me to drink . You've

53:05

been seriously being well .

53:06

We think moderation . You could write a fucking

53:08

book . Oh no much people would

53:10

pay for that . No , I haven't

53:13

you , you should . This is

53:15

another thing . You should become

53:18

a moderation coach . You know , you're like sobriety

53:20

coach . I learned

53:22

to moderate my drinking and so can you

53:25

. Five years time , you get loads of people bombing

53:27

out and you disappear to

53:29

fucking Peru or something never to be

53:31

seen again .

53:33

Step one work full time . Step two work

53:35

full time on second job . Step three have child . Step

53:42

four 8 pm . I'm fucking tired . I've had three beers . I'm going to

53:44

sleep . That's your moderation , landy . I , I , I couldn't get

53:46

shit face because I fall asleep

53:48

.

53:50

Three beers , I'm chilling , relaxed , the trend's , going

53:52

to sleep so I

53:54

need to burn myself out and then I can drink .

53:56

Yeah , that's , maybe , that's that's the trick

53:58

burn yourself out , dude , it's I

54:04

mean and move to australia . Moderation

54:06

lives . Move to move to australia because

54:08

cocaine is crappy and

54:10

it's super expensive . Oh

54:13

, it's been years since I've had it , but it's like

54:15

$350 for a gram

54:18

, yes , and

54:20

it's cut to the crap . It's terrible

54:22

. Oh , what a terrible place . I

54:24

think I had it at a stag maybe two

54:26

years ago and it was just rubbish

54:29

. I'm like shit . I

54:31

didn't buy a whole bag , but I think the boys

54:33

chipped in you have to do a whip around to

54:35

get a bag because it's fucking expensive . He's

54:38

got a hundred bucks . Oh , yeah , okay , you go . Yeah

54:40

, it's

54:44

yeah , so that's . You know , that's a good way to give up cocaine

54:46

. Happen if you had it . Move to Australia .

54:48

Yeah , is it ? Um , oh yeah

54:50

. This is , we're gonna go down the whole tangent

54:53

.

54:53

I'm not even gonna go tangent

55:01

, so I'm not even gonna go there . I'm not even gonna go , is it ? And it's um I

55:03

? I I've never delved . No , no , no , no , no , I've done . I used

55:05

to do pills when I was yeah I

55:08

mean I . I , I was married young

55:10

. I'm on my second marriage now oh

55:12

the same .

55:13

Yeah , I did exactly the same thing . Well , not on

55:15

my second marriage , but was married young

55:17

On the first .

55:18

Yeah , when we split up , I sort of well

55:21

, I think I was doing pills anyway , so I'd go out Friday

55:23

night . I can't blame the

55:25

girl for leaving me . Actually , I was going out Friday night and I'd come home

55:27

Sunday , so probably

55:29

not the best thing to do when

55:31

you're a married man , but I was only 24

55:33

. So far

55:35

too young , far too young . So I've

55:38

been married 2016

55:41

, eight years now this month . So you know

55:43

, I think I'm only just starting to

55:45

mature , thank you . I'm slowly becoming

55:49

a proper man at 43 .

55:50

It's funny how that happens . I feel

55:53

like there's a kind of , there's

55:56

a breed of males

55:58

, I think , that kind of and

56:00

we all end up falling in the same kind

56:02

of bracket of like

56:04

. You only start to figure your

56:06

shit out in your like mid-30s

56:09

and you go , oh shit , okay

56:11

, yeah , oh , that makes sense

56:13

. Why didn't no one tell me any of this earlier ? And

56:18

I certainly spent like most of my 20s being like , oh fuck , oh

56:20

fuck . That was just . My constant

56:22

feeling was fuck , um , again

56:25

, I was the same . I got married way

56:27

too young , um , and then when that relationship

56:29

ended , that's when it was like all right , I'm just

56:31

gonna get fucked up all the time now . Yeah

56:34

, um , that was the start of it for me . I

56:36

mean , yeah , but I'm better

56:38

for it now because she's a bit no

56:40

, I'm joking , she's not , she's

56:43

really not . Do you know what ? The most liberating

56:45

thing to be able to say is like

56:47

she , she left and

56:49

is now with someone else , with a child , and married

56:51

and all of that , and it happened very quickly

56:53

, so we'll say no more on that . But

56:55

, yeah , genuinely , the most liberating

56:57

feeling is I'm just so bloody

57:00

happy for them all because it was

57:02

like well , clearly that was a good thing , man and

57:04

that's wicked . Um , yeah , yeah

57:06

, definitely that's good being able to have like

57:08

ex-wife jokes up

57:12

in the in the ass . I still

57:14

have so much joy in being like because of

57:16

my darn ex-wife if I want

57:18

to be like . You know that bitch

57:20

.

57:21

Yeah , yeah , yeah .

57:22

If I want to fall into the deadbeat dad joke

57:24

category , I can . I've got that life

57:26

experience and that's what that gives me .

57:31

It's a journey , I think . You've got to learn all these

57:33

things yourself , and for some of

57:35

us it just takes a fuckload longer

57:37

lots of alcohol free

57:39

beers yeah , oh , definitely

57:42

yeah yeah , that's right , and you know anyway

57:46

.

57:46

So we've got , so we've got all of the

57:48

all of the big boy hitters that you've been making

57:50

. We've got the uk um , the

57:53

uk ones coming over . Are they kind of like

57:55

, are they going to be like a core range

57:57

, or are you working on a core range or what's your

57:59

kind of ? Yeah , so we are working

58:01

.

58:01

What do the next few years ideally look like for you On

58:03

a core range . So I'm speaking . So

58:05

the plan now and this will probably change next week

58:08

after I speak to James and George , but fuck

58:10

, no , you're not doing that is

58:12

to release a core range and I'm going to do a lager

58:14

and it will either be stoop

58:17

or low-life . Now I haven't tried low-life yet and

58:19

I should have by now and I haven't , but it will be here soon

58:21

. So I'm thinking I

58:23

just really like the label on it , but I think

58:25

so . In

58:29

Australia a normal can size is 375

58:32

mils , so the ones that we do 440s

58:35

at one drop . So I guess , long-term , the plan is maybe the lager as a call and

58:37

I've got a facility I can make that at who

58:39

make other several non-out brands in Australia

58:41

. So it's all

58:43

very good to make that there and they've got the capacity

58:46

and then maybe just these

58:48

silly ones at one drop every few months

58:50

just because it's fun

58:52

. Yeah , you can enjoy yourself

58:54

. That's the longer-term

58:56

plan . Need to pick

58:58

up a distributor . I've been speaking to a couple um

59:01

, all very interested with the

59:03

idea . So there's just a lot more business

59:05

acumen stuff . I need to understand and learn

59:07

and lean on james because

59:09

he's the , he's the brains behind that side

59:11

. So , um , and then

59:14

, yeah , I think that's it . So hopefully

59:16

by the end of this year we we'll have a core

59:18

lager . I know Jordan , I

59:21

know they've done Stoop Light , which is low

59:24

life in the US , so we might do the same

59:26

here . But he's always pro no

59:28

, do something specifically for that region , don't

59:30

do what we're doing here to

59:33

suit that region . So , yeah , we'll discuss

59:35

that in the next few weeks

59:37

, few months , I don't know , um , but yeah

59:39

, I think , in a nutshell

59:41

, core lager and maybe

59:43

every three to four months , a big can of

59:45

something silly , stupid . I'm gonna

59:47

go cali ipa next at one drop in a few

59:50

months time , so nice well

59:52

, it's , yeah , it's exciting man .

59:54

It is exciting , is exciting , and I

59:56

like the business model from talking

59:59

about it with you . I like that it's

1:00:01

your thing and I like that those guys are like

1:00:03

they're helping out and

1:00:05

it just seems really really cool man , like

1:00:07

they're a good company . It is a good company

1:00:09

, yeah .

1:00:10

Yeah , definitely , and they're good people . So

1:00:13

it's good shit .

1:00:14

Yep . Well

1:00:17

, thank you so much for coming in and

1:00:19

chatting to me . Like it's been nice talking to you , man

1:00:21

, like it's I like this

1:00:23

, um this whole platform

1:00:25

for for finding new friends and

1:00:27

um discovering new beers that you

1:00:30

wouldn't have discovered otherwise .

1:00:33

Yeah , no , I agree , it's , yeah , it's

1:00:35

. It's probably the best part of social

1:00:37

media . You can connect with like-minded people and

1:00:39

and make new friends , you know , and you don't ever

1:00:41

have to make them in person , but you can . You

1:00:44

can have lots of banter in dms , like we do

1:00:46

at some point when was a big mash

1:00:49

gang event ?

1:00:49

because I've never even met any of those guys in person

1:00:52

oh really no , I thought you , so I was supposed

1:00:54

to . I'm gonna get in trouble here . Well , I thought you , so I was supposed

1:00:56

I'm going to get in trouble here . Well , I'm not . So there was supposed

1:00:59

to be an event sometime

1:01:02

in January last year , yep

1:01:05

, but George messaged

1:01:07

me and was like , do you want to come and do something here ? And

1:01:10

I , literally this is how fucking clueless

1:01:13

I am , well not clueless . But I

1:01:15

ran downstairs after and spoke to my girlfriend

1:01:17

, was like , fuck , they've asked me to do this . Like it's fucking

1:01:19

what , what the fuck ? This is

1:01:21

mad . Yeah , and then that event didn't , didn't

1:01:23

end up happening . Um , oh

1:01:26

. So that was like when we would have met , um

1:01:28

, yeah , fell apart . And

1:01:30

then there was a time where alex was

1:01:32

like , oh , do you want to come and do some shit

1:01:35

with us ? And I was like , yeah , fuck , yeah , um

1:01:37

, yeah , and then that kind of didn't , didn't happen

1:01:39

in the end and it's like , oh , for fuck's sake

1:01:42

.

1:01:42

So one day it will

1:01:44

happen . I mean , I only met them all in person at

1:01:47

boxcarberry when we made the the

1:01:49

dark mile there . Yes

1:01:51

, where are they at there

1:01:54

? Where was that brewery ? It was east london , wasn't

1:01:56

it ? But it's I'd met , but it just I just felt

1:01:58

like I was just we're just mates forever

1:02:00

. Like it was canned in 2023 , I

1:02:03

think that wasn't it . Yeah , I was over for

1:02:05

christmas .

1:02:05

Yeah , okay , oh yeah , I

1:02:07

know that because I know , I know the christmas photo

1:02:10

, classic mash gang , christmas car oh yes

1:02:12

, mash , miss my um laptop battery's

1:02:14

got 20 minutes left , so so Good

1:02:17

talk for more hours .

1:02:19

I'm sure people don't want to listen to us ramble for over an

1:02:21

hour on the podcast .

1:02:23

The first time I ever met Jordan was

1:02:26

the second time .

1:02:27

Four score in the 20 years .

1:02:31

The 17th Zoom conversation

1:02:33

I had with Jordan was sent to the realtor

1:02:35

.

1:02:37

We can sell the diary , do you know

1:02:39

, Next year ? I'm over next year , so I

1:02:41

think we try and organize something .

1:02:43

Yeah , I'm just going to get in on it as an

1:02:45

honorary member . I'm still trying

1:02:47

to do that .

1:02:48

So when you crack that , I'll do that . Just

1:02:50

me making beers for them .

1:02:54

I'll sabotage other breweries for

1:02:57

them and just be like this beer's

1:02:59

really shit and

1:03:02

yeah , that'll be good . Um

1:03:05

, but yes , I'm sure our paths will cross

1:03:07

at some point , but until then

1:03:09

, um well , I'll probably talk

1:03:11

to you , like at some point over

1:03:13

the next 24 hours on Instagram . Thank you , brother , Take care . No thanks

1:03:15

, Thanks for the invite at some point over the next 24 hours on .

1:03:16

Instagram . Definitely 100% . Thank you , brother , take care

1:03:19

, no worries , thanks . Thanks for the invite

1:03:21

. Cheers .

1:03:21

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of

1:03:23

the Sober Boozers Club podcast

1:03:25

. My name is Ben Gibbs . You can find me on all

1:03:28

the socials at Sober Boozers Club To

1:03:30

see what Trent's doing over in Australia , head

1:03:32

to mashgangcomau Although

1:03:36

if you're from the UK , then that's probably

1:03:38

pointless , because you'll just get jealous . If you

1:03:40

want to nag the rest of the Mash Gang guys about getting

1:03:42

the beers over in the UK , head on

1:03:44

over to all of our Instagram pages . There's

1:03:46

a UK one , there's an American one , there's an

1:03:48

Australian one . There'll soon be a South Birmingham

1:03:50

one . For now , you relax and I'll catch

1:03:52

you soon .